


Christmas Decorations

by Yukito



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukito/pseuds/Yukito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick is not happy with Jess' idea of Christmas decorations for the apartment... or is he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Decorations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emef](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/gifts).



“What are you doing?” Nick approached Jess in their apartment living room with an expression of confusion and distrust.

“I’m decorating for Christmas.” Jess responded without turning around.

“How many Christmases, exactly?” 

Jess finished placing the last bulb on the tree, then took a step back and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Nick and took in the three Christmas trees that were grouped together in the corner of the room. Two were already decorate. One was decorated with store-bought ornament and the other was decorated with hand-made ornaments Jess and her students made over the years of her teaching. She had yet to decorate the third.

She looked at the grouping of trees and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. She looked at Nick with a furrowed brow. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is,” Nick said as he gestured to the trees. “Don’t you think three trees is a bit excessive?”

“Why?” Jess didn’t see anything wrong with it at all.

“Because most normal people have one tree.”

Jess shrugged, then smiled as she responded, “I think three trees is more festive. Like a Christmas forest!

Nick had to repress the eye-roll he felt about to manifest. He sighed and gestured to the trees. “This is also, like, a huge fire safety issue.”

Jess was the one to eye roll and she coupled it with a wave of her hand. “Oh please. Schmidt has three shelves filled with hair products in the bathroom that are a bigger fire hazard than these. They aren’t even real trees.”

Nick fell quiet for a moment since he realized he lost that argument. He stared at the trees with disdain for a long pause, then his expression seemed to change. He looked at Jess with a ‘challenge-accepted’ look.

“Fine,” He said with his usual ‘I’ve got you now’ tone. “The trees can stay. But since this is a shared apartment and there’s obviously two trees that represent _you_ , I think it’s only fair that the Scmidt, Winston, and I get to decorate our own tree.”

Jess seemed to hesitate. It wasn’t like the guys had a lot of style except for Schmidt, but all Jess could picture Schmidt putting on the tree were pictures of models or something similar. However, she didn’t want to say no because she was sure Nick would use that as an argument to go with one tree and Jess liked the three she had up.

“...Alright.” Jess felt like she had just agreed to a very bad idea. “Fine.” She nodded and gestured with a slight bow toward the tree. “Be my guest.”

“Great.” 

With a cocky sort of smile, Nick turned and disappeared into the bathroom. He returned a moment later with a roll of toilet paper in his hand. Jess watched with disbelief as Nick walked up to the undecorated tree and began to string the toilet paper on it like it was garland.

“What are you doing?” Jess sounded a bit concerned.

“Decorating the tree. What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“With _toilet paper_?”

Nick shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“Because it’s something you use when you’re in the bathroom to wipe your you-know-what” She pointed to her rear-end.

“It’s white, isn’t it?” Nick countered as he continued. “like snow.”

Jess almost laughed and shook her head. “Snow isn’t quilted.”

“Whatever.” Nick shrugged again. “I like it and since it’s up to me how to decorate, the toilet paper is staying.”

Jess stood there for a moment, awestruck, then suddenly felt resolve course through her. She gave Nick a slightly defiant look and lifted her chin up a bit.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Nick retorted.

“Fine.” Jess realized she was repeating the same word. “Then I’ll just start decorating the rest of the apartment.

It took Nick a second to register what Jess had said.

“Wait, what?!” Nick had been under the impression that three trees was the extent of the holiday cheer. He should have known from living with Jess that it was never that simple, but part of him had hoped, this time, it was.

“I’ll start decorating the rest of the apartment.”

Nick looked up from what he was doing from behind the tree. “There’s more decorations?”

“Of course there is!” Jess disappeared into her room, but kept talking. “You can’t just put up trees at Christmas.”

“You can’t?” Nick frowned.

Jess’s answer to Nick was to return to the living are with two armfuls of wreaths. She moved over to Schmidt’s room and hung one of his door, then moved to Winston and then headed for Nick’s door. Jess just managed to hang it on Nick’s door when Nick walked up beside her.

“Okay,” He said, “I draw the lines at wreaths.”

“Why?” Jess still had a wreath for their front door and looked a little shocked mixed with a little bit of disappointment. “What’s wrong with wreaths?”

“They’re like circle trees, Jess. With these, we have like, eight trees in this apartment. _Eight_.” Which seemed like an obscene amount to Nick and he decided he was finally going to put his foot down. The wreaths had to go.

“What is with your sudden dislike of trees?” Jess looked at him with a strange expression.

“I don’t have a dislike for trees. I just think we’re over-doing it this year and I like to keep things simple.” Nick explained as he reached for the wreath hanging on his door. “So, the wreaths go.”

He pulled the wreath off and opened his mouth to add something but paused and looked down at the wreath in his hands. He hadn’t really noticed what was on it until now.

“What is this?” Nick looked down confused.

“What’s what?” Jess glanced at the wreath, too.

“On the wreath. There’s... miniature shot glasses...”

“Because you’re a bartender.” Jess chimed in.

“And pizza?”

Jess smiled. “Deep dish, from Chicago.”

“...a wrench...”

“Because you fix lots of things around this apartment.” Jess nodded.

Nick blinked and looked at everything else. It slowly dawned on him that Jess had individualized all the wreaths with things that related to them. What was also clear to Nick was that Jess had obviously picked things that she saw in him, rather than what he portrayed. 

“Jess...” He looked up and to Jess and immediately felt like an idiot. “You didn’t have to do this.”

She shrugged with a smile. “I know, but I thought it’d be nice.” Her smile widened. “Since none of us are going away this Christmas, I thought making some of our own traditions and making it more personalized during the season would be nice.”

Nick could only stare at Jess for a moment in silence. He looked at her and not for the first time thought about how incredible she was. He wanted to reach out and draw her into a hug. His eyes glanced down briefly to her red lips before meeting her gaze again and he pushed away any thought of kissing her. This was his roommate. This was Jess. She was special. She deserved more.

“Thanks, Jess.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Really, Jess.” Nick looked at her poignantly. “Thank you.”

Jess was happy that Nick liked it. Something inside her warmed and it was a feeling she knew wouldn’t quite duplicate by praise from Winston or Schmidt. She reached out and at the last second changed her mind and gently picked imaginary lint off of Nick’s shirt with a warm smile.

“Merry Christmas, Nick.”

“Merry Christmas, Jess.”

**Author's Note:**

> Saw this prompt and thought of a story, so I hope you like it!


End file.
